yttrium

yttrium, 7 months ago

In this case “sex” would typically be considered to still be a noun; it’s just taking a more adjective-like role in the phrase. In English, and especially in headlinese, it’s common to place two nouns together like this, with the first modifying the second. The noun “sex” is called an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_adjunct in this context, and “orgy” is its head noun.

This particular phrase actually contains 5 of these attributive-head relationships. I can’t be sure, since it’s nigh-impossible to parse the headline, but I think that “Ferrari” is an attributive whose head is “sex”. If we were to say that “sex” is an adjective just because it’s modifying the noun “orgy”, we’d also be forced to conclude that “Ferrari” is an adverb because it’s modifying an adjective.

yttrium, 7 months ago

If you read the article it’s about someone in China who died by crashing a Ferrari.

Looking at it again, I actually think “Ferrari” is supposed to be modifying “crash”. Here’s how I’d diagram the phrase (using a dependency grammar, because I’m not about to try to format a bunch of NP nodes in plaintext):

<span style="color:#323232;">                             crash
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  v------v---------v-----v-----/
</span><span style="color:#323232;">China Ferrari     orgy death
</span><span style="color:#323232;">               v---/
</span><span style="color:#323232;">              sex
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">China Ferrari sex orgy death crash
</span>

• the crash caused death
• the crash was due to an orgy
• the orgy was specifically a sex orgy
• the crash involved a Ferrari
• the crash happened in China

yttrium, 7 months ago

When I’m commenting on a post I tend to use very high-register vocabulary, to the point of sounding archaic or academic. I think it’s primarily a hold-over from writing essays in school, but it doesn’t hurt that the places on the Internet where I hang out tend to be extremely nerdy.

I also frequently leave my sentences unfinished when talking IRL. I’ll just sort of trail off once I can see that I’ve gotten my point across instead of bothering with a complete sentence.

yttrium, 7 months ago

Ooh, what’s the code?

yttrium, 7 months ago

That’s… incredible. If people who write code like that can get programming jobs, maybe I shouldn’t be quite so worried about my own skills.

yttrium, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Computers are an endless source of these. Someone else already mentioned daemons and killing orphans; I submit “I only ever ssh into that box, so I keep it headless.” (“I only ever access that computer via the terminal, so I don’t install any software that uses graphics.”)

Conlanging (constructing languages) inherits all the jargon of linguistics, and then adds a bunch of slang on top for good measure. “I was worried that glomming tense markers to subjects in my analytic clong was unnaturalistic, but it turns out ANADEW” is the kind of thing I might say in a casual conversation with another conlanger.

yttrium, 7 months ago

Coupling is my favorite. It’s like docking for machines

yttrium, 7 months ago

What’s not to like? Sechyal rslytsre is a perfectly respectable name.

yttrium, 7 months ago

When I first heard Money Machine by 100 gecs I thought that the intro was funny, but the song was ultimately unlistenable. I’m now a die-hard hyperpop fan.

yttrium, 8 months ago

Wow, your guide may have just made my decision for me. Thank you so much for all the info, it’s incredibly helpful for a novice like myself!

yttrium, 8 months ago

Firefox wasn’t around during the time of the ancient greeks, silly. They used Netscape Navigator

yttrium, 8 months ago

Huh, TIL about big theta

yttrium, 8 months ago

Cache poisoning